A celebration of the daily triumphs and tribulations of researchers everywhere

Month: September 2016

Managing change can be the mental equivalent of a Cirque du Soleil performance. Image: cleveland.com

The truest of truisms is that everything changes and nothing is certain. Except, of course, for death, taxes and the alignment of grant application deadlines with the busiest times of year.

Change is a permanent state of being in research, where topics can switch direction on the whim of a funding body embracing a new buzzword, and everything that you’ve been working towards for months or years becomes suddenly irrelevant. It’s enough to drive anyone under their lab bench in a foetal position.

Change-management needs to be considered an essential ability of researchers and yet this is one skill that’s not usually part of PhD training. During a PhD, there is one project that continues until completion, regardless of any shifts in research interests. Even when the entire topic disappears, like when a government stopped global warming, the PhDs continued.

And as tough as PhD research is and as many problems that crop during this research, it is nowhere near as psychologically traumatising as shelving all your research just before the project bears fruit.

Shifting project directions on a proverbial pin-head takes a kind of mental dexterity that would make any Cirque-de-Soleil performer jealous. Developing these abilities should be encouraged more during PhDs but probably not to the extent of forcing major change onto students.

With experience and practice in research skills, suddenly changing topics is not only possible but also potentially exciting. But only after the researcher has been coaxed from under their bench. There must be an adjustment phase. Usually involving both chocolate and wine.

Shelved research doesn’t have to die and so there’s no need for an extended period of mourning. With proper labels* and document management, such research can be put into temporary stasis from which it can be reborn. Probably in a new and improved format with a funky new buzzword in the title.

In the meantime, there is opportunity to take on another challenge and a new topic full of exciting problems to tackle. The new collaborations formed and approaches developed may even assist in solving past research problems.

With change comes opportunity and with the right skills and sufficient supplies of chocolate, it can be embraced.